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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: beginning to weary of the monotony of a country-house, were keenly
interested in a plot so thoroughly in keeping with the life of the
provinces. They all took sides with the abbe against the old maid.
"Don't you see, my dear friend," said Madame de Listomere, "that the
Abbe Troubert wants your apartment?"
Here the historian ought to sketch this lady; but it occurs to him
that even those who are ignorant of Sterne's system of "cognomology,"
cannot pronounce the three words "Madame de Listomere" without
picturing her to themselves as noble and dignified, softening the
sternness of rigid devotion by the gracious elegance and the courteous
manners of the old monarchical regime; kind, but a little stiff;
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